Page:Voyage in search of La Perouse, volume 2 (Stockdale).djvu/244

196 We saw the land of New Caledonia from east 19° 30′ south, to west 12° north, from the nearest shore of which we were only 50 toises. The inhabitants now had no occasion for their canoes to come to us; most of them swam to the ship, with the articles which they wished to sell.

I ought not here to omit a malicious trick, which had nearly caused the loss of the young bread-fruit trees, that I had brought from the Friendly Islands. I had watered them in the evening; but, seeing some drops of water early in the morning trickle from the box in which they were planted, I had no doubt, but some one had watered them long after me. Of this I was fully convinced, the moment I tasted the water, that filtered through the mould; for it was salt. The inquiries I made to discover the person who had been guilty of this trick, were in vain.

About one in the afternoon we went ashore, and were soon surrounded by a great number of the natives, who just came out of the middle of the wood, into which we had entered several times, though still keeping near the shore. We presently found a few scattered huts, three or four hundred paces distant from each other, and overshadowed by a few cocoa trees. Soon after we came to four, which formed a little hamlet, in one of the gloomiest parts of the forest. They